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Source: Star Phoenix: Contract Was to Produce Spin, NDP SaysSource: CBC News: Sask. Government Pays to Study Film Tax Credit After it was CutSource: Leader Post: Sask. Party Not Straight on IPAC-CO2

There’s a few things to talk about, so let’s move on and get to talking.

We’ll start with the recent development on the Saskatchewan Film Tax Credit front. One year after the government cut the tax credit, the debate over why the credit was cut and the demand for it to return continues to hound the government. With numerous production companies and industry professionals leaving the

Well, it was Budget Day here in Saskatchewan and everyone is stopping to take a moment and examine the budget and the details that it contained. I’ve said before on the blog that financial policy isn’t one of my strong suits, so hopefully I’ve managed to examine this information correctly.

There were some silver linings to the budget, including a bit of a swell into health care spending (though there is room to debate whether spending on reducing surgical wait times and rural doctor recruitment will pay off) but the bulk of the budget was mostly on the disappointing side.

After the first ballot results were announced yesterday, I pointed out the 20% net margin of support that Cam Broten needed to turn a close first-ballot result into a narrow win. And that turned out to be exactly what materialized: of the 2,393 votes cast initially for either Trent Wotherspoon or Erin Weir, the final result showed 18% attrition, with 51% to Broten and 31% to Ryan Meili – leading to Broten’s election as the Saskatchewan NDP’s new leader.

But in retrospect, there was another, even closer vote comparison which may have hinted at the same end result.

By a very tight margin, of 44 votes, the new leader of the Saskatchewan NDP is Saskatoon-Massey Place MLA. Cam Broten.

Broten edged out first ballot leader, Ryan Meili, as mentioned by a mere 44 votes; which shows that the bulk of Trent’s supporters found their way into Cam’s camp. Cam’s speech thanked his fellow candidates, emphasizing the roles he hopes all of them will play in the next election and the hopes of seeing them all in the front bench in the next NDP caucus and government.

Cam also appealed to non-supporters, calling on the need for their vision

The Saskatchewan NDP leadership’s first-ballot results and ensuing developments are in. And while the balloting may be somewhat shorter than it could have been due to Trent Wotherspoon’s withdrawal, there’s still plenty of intrigue surrounding the second and final ballot.

The safest assumption may be to assume that down-ballot voting will mirror first-ballot results – in which case Ryan Meili will of course emerge ahead. And the absence of any endorsements in Cam Broten’s favour will leave him without an obvious source of additional momentum to try to sway the few voters participating today (with only about 700 additional votes

With upwards of 70% of eligible voters having already cast a ballot (and plenty of question as to how many more will do so), it’s anybody’s guess as to whether new votes today will substantially influence the results of Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership race.

But for those still looking for a point of reference in deciding, I’ll offer a reminder that it’s possible to learn important lessons about a candidate by seeing how well he manages a public showcase whose planning is entirely under his campaign’s control. And so while I don’t expect to see any of the candidates radically change

With this weekend’s convention approaching, we’re starting to see plenty more media coverage of the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race. So for those who haven’t yet voted (or those looking for some new material generally), there’s discussion on offer through:- Metro’s brief profiles of each of Cam Broten, Ryan Meili and Trent Wotherspoon;- Murray Mandryk’s latest, features each of the candidates defining their view of leadership; and- assorted other radio and TV appearances by the candidates (which I’ll post if links are available).

Meanwhile, Wotherspoon’s campaign is nicely prepared for the convention, having already circulated

So far, I’ve limited these rankings to the question of which candidate I see as most likely to emerge victorious at the Saskatchewan NDP’s leadership convention.

But since the rankings haven’t produced any substantial movement, I’ll include a bit more to this week’s prognostication, adding my best guess as to the candidates’ first-ballot support andestimated chance of victory.

1. Ryan Meili (1)

While I’m not entirely convinced that Meili is set to double the vote totals of his two remaining competitors, he still looks to be in the pole position heading into this weekend’s convention. And the large number of

Let’s close out my series of candidate reviews with a look at Trent Wotherspoon.

At the start of the campaign, Wotherspoon’s campaign looked to have plenty of room for variance in multiple directions.

On the upside, his flashy and well-attended launch and early spending spree raised the prospect that he might be able to position himself too far ahead of his competitors for anybody else to catch up. But on the downside, he also faced questions about his ability to deal with tough challenges, as well as a risk that he might take on negative impressions due to the perception

With the advance voting window closing on Tuesday and the Saskatchewan NDP’s convention set to take place next weekend, we’ve seen a flurry of leadership activity in the last few days – including both late appeals from the candidates themselves, and additional material for discussion.

On the candidate front, Trent Wotherspoon’s campaign released his closing argument:

Meanwhile, the latest financial report served mostly to confirm that there’s still a tight three-way race. Cam Broten took a small advantage over Meili for the most recent reporting period, while Meili still

For those of us curious as to why one of the most significant voices in Saskatchewan NDP’s leadership campaign has been fairly quiet lately, Scott Stelmaschuk offered his explanation this week – as well as an endorsement that everybody within the party should be able to support.

Meanwhile, there hasn’t been much other news to cover recently. Aside from a few more endorsements and some boilerplate appeals for support, one new policy plank has been added to the mix (Ryan Meili’s announcement on co-operative economic development).

But the campaigns’ obvious priority has been to lock in votes during the early

For obvious reasons, there’s at least one change to this week’s Saskatchewan NDP leadership candidate rankings. But will there be any more news other than Erin Weir’s withdrawal from the race at a time when most of the voting is expected to be taking place?

1. Ryan Meili (1)

Well, Meili for one should enjoy a strengthened position, with Weir (and by all indications his key supporters) added to what already looked to be the front-running campaign just in time to combine the candidates’ respective get-out-the-vote efforts. And while I’m not quite as eager as some to declare the

Let’s close out my review at the Saskatchewan NDP’s leadership debates with a brief look at the Moose Jaw forum – which featured a fair bit of talk about specific local issues (including candidate and member questions about the closure of the Valley View Centre) in addition to a familiar set of general themes:

Perhaps the most noteworthy theme throughout the debate was that of ensuring that the corporate sector shares in the province’s effort to deal with social concerns. In response to a question on climate change policy, Ryan Meili pointed out the need for large-scale businesses to pay

Dan Tan has already provided one follow-up post on the sudden rash of commentary arising out of Erin Weir’s decision to withdraw from the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race and endorse Ryan Meili. But I’ll take my own look at how the Weir endorsement and the associated reaction from the Village (or should we call it the Hamlet for Saskatchewan?) may affect the leadership campaign.

As long as there were four leadership candidates in the race, there were several ways to try to draw dividing lines among them. And the message that’s suddenly crystallized in the media wouldn’t have registered

Alongside yesterday’s news of Erin Weir’s withdrawal to support Ryan Meili in the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race (also discussed by Scott and Brian) came a few other noteworthy developments – not the least of which was the reaction of the other two leadership candidates (discussed here by Jason).

Meanwhile, Meili released a seniors policy incorporating Weir’s proposal to backfill against federal cuts to Old Age Security.

Finally, John Warnock offered up his latest thoughts – though I don’t see his overwhelming negativity about either Meili’s chances in the leadership race or the future of the NDP under Broten or

Well, by now everyone should have heard that Erin Weir has withdrawn from the Sask. NDP Leadership race and thrown his behind Ryan Meili. As mentioned yesterday, it was one of the possibilities when it was announced that the two were making a joint announcement earlier today.

As with others, I’d like to extend my well wishes to Erin and thank him for his contributions to the campaign. I think he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that New Democrats can stand toe to toe with their right of centre counterparts on economic issues, and bring forward exciting and (Read more…)

One of the dangers of trying to catch up to past leadership events is the possibility that any analysis might be overtaken by more recent developments. But before we find out what’s involved in today’s joint announcement from Ryan Meili and Erin Weir, let’s take a look at one more of the leadership debates.

At the outset, the Prince Albert forum featured journeys into a bit more uncharted territory than most of the recent debates, including specific policy questions about forestry, mental health and reproductive rights. And on each point, the candidates more than held their own in addressing relatively

While there’s been plenty of news in Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership campaign over the past week, there’s hasn’t been much evidence to suggest the campaign’s shape has changed to any great degree. So rather than explaining why this week’s rankings stay the same, I’ll include a comment on pluses for each candidate which haven’t received much attention so far.

1. Ryan Meili (1)

While Meili has understandably focused on his apparent lead within the leadership race, he may also enjoy an advantage over his opponents when it comes to shifting gears once all the votes are in.

While I’ve tried to stay as current as possible in discussing the Saskatchewan NDP leadership debates, there have been some limitations in my ability to do so based on both the party’s capacity to upload past debates, and my own time in reviewing them. As a result, I’m still working on getting caught up on previous debates – and a few of the choices made by Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership candidates later on make a lot more sense in light of the Yorkton debate:

Again, in discussing the Regina debate I was surprised to think anybody might have expected Cam Broten

The final official debate of Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership campaign took place yesterday in Saskatoon – and since it was livestreamed, I’ll offer some commentary on it for now, then link to the video when it’s available.

In contrast to all of the debates since the Regina kick-off (the other debate which was live-streamed), yesterday’s forum didn’t feature any questions between the candidates. Instead, moderator Charles Smith was left to follow up each candidate’s answer to audience questions – and while Smith took those in some interesting directions, he generally didn’t challenge the candidates’ initial answers or push for substantially deeper

The second-last Saskatchewan NDP leadership debate took place in Moose Jaw this past week, with the most thorough coverage coming from the Times-Herald (and Justin Crann). As usual I’ll hold off on commenting until the video is available – though I have a couple of earlier debates to address over the long weekend, as well as the final one being live-streamed at 2 PM today.

Friday also saw the release of the latest financial reports. There, Ryan Meili continues to have the lead both in total money raised and cash on hand, but January saw a noteworthy switch of

Shortly after I posted yesterday’s roundup featuring some discussing of Praxis Analytics’ Saskatchewan NDP leadership polling, Jordon Cooper chimed in with the results of an internal poll distributed by Cam Broten – which has been treated as somewhere between worthless and gospel depending on the leadership camp commenting on it. So let’s take a quick look at the actual significance of internal polls in past NDP leadership races in determining what weight any new ones should carry.

The most recent examples to be considered would come from the 2012 federal race – where virtually all polling confirmed Thomas Mulcair to

While Ryan has released his healthcare policy, and we will talk about that in another post, one of the more interesting things to come out the campaign recently has been two sets of poll numbers.

The first poll comes from the Star Phoenix, the full article can be found here: http://www.leaderpost.com/news/poll+Sask+leadership+race/7954869/story.html

The first, done by Praxis Analytics is what we will talk about first. Firstly, then poll suggests that few people outside of the party membership are paying attention to the race thus far; in that 55% of those surveyed were not aware of the leadership contest,

In the most noteworthy leadership development of the past few days, Praxis Analytics has released the first set of public poll results since last fall – with a couple of interesting findings.

First, there’s the fact that nearly two-thirds of respondents (in a poll of the general public) couldn’t name any of the candidates. That means that whoever wins the race will be starting nearly from scratch in building a public profile – which isn’t without its upside, as it looks to signal that the money the Saskatchewan Party spent attacking the candidates was an utter waste.